Words of Wisdom
All Stories
Words of wisdom from Maya Angelou: “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
Words of wisdom from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”
Words of wisdom from the late playwright: “It is not the literal past, the ‘facts’ of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”
Words of wisdom from Simone de Beauvoir: “The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength, each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving.”
Words of Wisdom from Cuban national hero José Martí: “Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think, and to speak without hypocrisy. … A man who obeys a bad government is not an honest man.”
Words of wisdom from FDR: “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”
Words of Wisdom from 20th century actress, comedian, and sex symbol Mae West: “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
Words of wisdom from J.K. Rowling: “Those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters; for without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it through our own apathy.”
Words of wisdom from Maya Angelou: “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”
Words of wisdom from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling: “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.”
“I don’t think that anything that’s really creative can be done without danger and risk.”
Neil Young will be speaking at The Nantucket Project, a festival ofideas happening September 24 – 27 on Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Words of wisdom from writer, producer, and actor Rod Serling: “It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable.”
Words of wisdom from Abraham Lincoln: “Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.”
Words of wisdom from Cuban national hero José Martí: “Everything that divides men, everything that specified, separates, or pens them, is a sin against humanity.”
Dr. Sacks died on 30 August 2015, in his home in Manhattan at the age of 82 from liver cancer.
Words of wisdom from FDR: “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”
Words of wisdom from Sherman Alexie: “I don’t know what any individual should do about crossing her own borders. I only know that I live a happier, more adventurous life, by crossing borders.”
Words of wisdom from A. Philip Randolph: “Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other; they do not know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated.”
Words like “liberty” and “freedom” represent big ideas that are about as amorphous as they are valued.
Words of wisdom from 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
Words of wisdom from the late, great Maya Angelou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said; people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Two of the most famously rousing speeches in history, though one is from a dramatic work, address many of the same topics: bravery, fear, camaraderie, and death.
Words of wisdom from the 32nd president of the United States: “More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.” FDR’s words are inspiring, but are they feasible?
History is littered with prejudiced ideas that use Darwin to claim legitimacy.
“It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable.”
Words of wisdom from Cuban national hero José Martí: “A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one’s self from the tyranny of any of them.”
What makes a great artist? According to French writer Émile Zola, it’s talent coupled with tenacity.
“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”
Words of wisdom from the great composer and pioneer of ethnomusicology: “Competitions are for horses, not artists.”